Developing a new generation of text-to-speech technology with unprecedented flexibility

Synfonica Awarded NIH Grant

In April 2015, Synfonica LLC began work on a Small Business Innovation Research grant funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders of the National Institutes of Health. As part of this project, we are investigating how emotions are encoded and perceived in speech. Using our findings, we will enhance Synfonica's text-to-speech system with powerful expressive speech capabilities.

Ultimately, we aim to offer flexible speech output unlike anything currently available, which will be of particular benefit for users of augmentative and alternative communication technologies.

Synfonica Launches

In May 2014, NovaSpeech LLC became Synfonica LLC. This change coincides with our shift in emphasis away from a hybrid speech synthesis approach to one based exclusively on formant synthesis. You can read more about our approach and its evolution on our Technology page.

Formant synthesis offers a degree of control over the speech output not afforded by any other type of synthesis technology. The Synfonica system capitalizes on this flexibility while at the same time offering improved naturalness over existing formant systems. This flexibility and naturalness makes it well-suited to virtually any application requiring unlimited vocabulary speech output, including embedded applications. Our initial focus is on specialized applictions for assistive technology. At the same time, we are developing a software development kit (SDK) for more general speech synthesis applications.

Our synthesis models are grounded in the extensive linguistic knowledge we have amassed in over forty years of work in rule-based text-to-speech synthesis. You can read more about our company and team on our About Us page.

Opportunity for Speech-Language Pathologists

We are seeking SLPs interested in testing a proprietary speech therapy tablet app currently in development.

Our application has unique capabilities that may be of substantial benefit in helping your clients improve their speech. Working with us would give you the opportunity to help shape the product.

Please contact us if you are interested in learning more about this opportunity.